


Errata

by risokura



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 19:50:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7375138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/risokura/pseuds/risokura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of one-shots written from multiple perspectives archiving the relationship and thoughts of the Female Sole Survivor and Piper Wright using the fifty theme sentence challenge Delta set as prompts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Errata

_#12 - End_

I want to be clichéd and refer to it as hell. I want to call it anything besides the bane of my existence… a cesspool of rotting fixtures and decrepit structures that house ghosts of the past I came from. I have fought to try and find my place in this wasteland, but I have none. I destroyed the last remnants of my family and I am paying dearly for the choice that I thought was best.

I was stoic in the aftermath, watching the smoke clear from what remained of the Institute. Had I done the right thing? Was this the right thing? I shut myself in at Piper’s place unable to face anyone for too long in the wake of the Institute’s destruction. All I’ve been thinking about is my son’s face, that lasting impression of disappointment that I did not indulge his dying wish of assuming the role of Director. How could I? _Why_ would I?

I know this feeling all too well. This wallowing. The passive role you take on, lying like a vegetable in your bed while the world continues on without you. When you’re young, you tend to think of depression as _inspiration._ I thought this had somehow defined me as a person, I thought that I understood the world.

The older I get, the stupider I become. I used to believe that what I had to say was profound. Something no one had ever heard before. Me and my peers, of course, were still learning these things. For some reason, everything made sense to me. I thought that I could look at someone, see what they were going through and somehow— _somehow—_ I was authorized to give them advice. I deemed myself the authority on what everyone should think and feel.

These days I find that I don’t care to talk or listen much. When people speak, I often drown them out. Don’t pay attention. Respond with noncommittal sounds of affirmation. And no one seems to realize that you aren’t listening to them. They’re all here just to hear themselves talk. It’s asinine and deplorable. The world has ended. Look at the disorder that surrounds us. None of this even matters anymore.

When I was younger, I would project onto others. I used to think that the conclusions I drew from my own life somehow applied to theirs. I thought this … enlightenment … somehow placed me above others. I used to go to therapy, talked to a shrink. You're supposed to make peace with your life. It all seemed so easy. I couldn’t understand why anyone was still crazy when I thought everything was so simple. Medication was stupid. All you needed was _willpower—_ the willpower to succeed. The willpower to  _survive._

These days, it’s not so simple. Or is it? This world lacks the intricacies of my own. It’s either kill or be killed. I chose to kill. The outline of the face of someone who possesses my name is marred. I used to see her with such clarity, but now everything was fuzzy. I was outlined in pure, unadulterated giddiness. She flickered, and I was beaming. Smoke fills my lungs, pumps me full of something I couldn’t find with Nate. It leaves me with a long, drawn out and limitless night. I feel… I feel dull. I am numb. Do I exist?

This world that I’ve awoken to… nothing is the same as when I was young. Sometimes I feel like I’m chasing the same feeling. The feeling that every time I stepped out into the world that it was supposed to mean something. I killed my son. What is that supposed to mean?

My memories keep cycling back to when I was eighteen… what a stupid age. Its only important while you’re there, when the world is still new and scary. It's the bright, brilliant step before you become some jaded adult stuck in the eternity of your mid-twenties. Where your friends become distant and the news they tell you is less shocking… more boring. And so, life goes on. I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on these things, what with the world in the current state. I remember during my last few years of graduate school, there was this professor of mine that said nuclear war was inane. It would never happen. Yet, my cheek is still wet with the caked up blood of a stranger. 

I remember the day before the bombs fell. I had just gotten off the phone with my mother. She was trying to persuade me to come home again. I had always dismissed her concern as hysterical paranoia. She was caught up in this pre-war edginess that the rest of the United States had ascribed to. Everything was about the _impending doom_ that loomed over all of us. But, I told her I wasn’t leaving Massachusetts. I was staying here with Nate and Shaun. I always wonder what became of her in those final moments before I was put into stasis…

I try to sleep while Piper is gone. It doesn't work. She's out there hitting the pavement night and day with questions for the trepid souls that plague this world. She says things like journalism unearths the only truth that we need to know. Which, when you’re a journalist, makes sense. I don't care for the truth anymore. The truth killed everything for me. My only truth is the feeling I’ve been trying to fight since I woke up. It’s the same depression from before. It’s how I’ve learned to cope with the world. It mirrors as apathy, but it’s really just… this feeling of being completely and utterly done with the world. I think I’m depressed because I’m a realist. I don’t cling to this shining notion of fulfillment, success… glory. I think even if the world hadn’t ended… if my _child_ hadn’t been taken away from me… I would still feel this way. 

I light another cigarette. Stale smoke fills my lungs.

The front door opens. _Blue?_

 _Is this what the end is supposed to feel like?_  


End file.
